Automata

first of all, it had an uphill battle to overcome this overused premise. it started out promising enough, and it was visually great throughout, but it tried to touch on too many things, played loose too many times, and ended up injecting a sentimentality that i can't even take from spielberg. also, when lines are repeated and, especially, said back to a character, they have to be really good lines, which was not the case here. definitely worth watching for fans of the genre though. read more

an interesting premise is the key to a quality sci-fi film, and this is something automata most definitely has. set in a dystopian, blade runner-esqe future where much of the world has been rendered uninhabitable and the remainder of humanity lives in bleak, isolated cities, robots do most of the menial tasks in society. these robots are governed by two unalterable protocols, they cannot harm living beings, or alter themselves or any other robot. when jacq (antonio banderas), a robot insurance claims agent, is sent to investigate a robot which a junkie cop (dylan mcdermott) shot when he saw... read more